#53 | Polar Béarla

The breakthrough star of Irish twitter in 2018 must surely be @ruthiefizz – while other tweeters have hurled poorly-cogitated stock arguments at each other, her “Other Ireland” account has used the possibilities of the format to explore important ideas like consent, misogyny and mental health while also sharing informative and fancy facts about (and pictures of) wildlife. What her thousands of followers may not know, however, is that Ruth Fitzpatrick has a solid academic background in Celtic Civilisation and a special interest in Breton, medieval Welsh and Manx Gaeilge.

In this week’s episode, Ruthie and Motherfoclóir regular Peadar terrorise Darach has he tries to do a serious interview about these serious topics in an absurdist subversion of the authorial voice worthy of Flann O’Brien himself. Having said that, there are still some animal names in Irish and insights into being sound and changing minds in an online world full of berks.